08-26-2020 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF REPORT TO:Mayor Keis and Members of City Council FROM:Heidi Heller, City Clerk DATE:August 26, 2020 RE:Consider Minimum Distance Between Liquor Stores ACTION TO BE CONSIDERED: Discuss an Amendment to City Code Chapter 703, adding minimum distance requirements between off-sale liquor licenses. BACKGROUND: City staff has received a request for the Council to consider amending the code to add minimum distance requirements between liquor stores. Before spending time drafting a code amendment, staff is requesting the Council provide direction on whether or not or proceed with this request. There is currently one off-sale liquor license issued in Little Canada at 2760 Rice Street. The City Code allows up to three off-sale liquor licenses, and the only distance limitation is that no liquor licenses will be issued for a location within 800 feet from any Little Canada school building or church. A distance requirement from churches and schools is common in many other cities. There had been two liquor stores located next door to each other at 2760 and 2770 Rice Street for many years until one closed a few years ago. City staff has researched if other cities in the metro area have distance requirements for liquor stores, and only a few do. Most cities choose not to put restrictions on retail businesses, rather allowing the market to self-monitor what and how much the area can support. Little Canada has limited commercial area - Rice Street and areas adjacent to Rice Street are the primary retail areas – so adding limitations to what tenants can locate in a building may not be supported by commercial property owners. Little Canada currently has no distance requirements between any types of businesses, other than liquor and tobacco businesses from churches and schools. In cities that operate municipal liquor stores, they are able to appropriately space liquor stores apart from each other. If the Council is considering adding distance requirements, many parcels along Rice Street are small, so a 200 or 300 foot distance requirement would not allow liquor stores to be located right next door to each other in many cases. From 2760 Rice Street, it is approximately 1,200 feet going south to County Road C, and going north it is approximately 650 feet to Little Canada Road and 1,300 feet to Market Place Drive. The entire stretch of Rice Street through Little Canada from 2260 Rice (McDonald’s) to 3300 Rice Street (Cardigan Ridge) is 2.2 miles long.